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اللغة الإنجليزية · Bac SMB · المعامل 2

Prefixes and Suffixes — English Bac SMB

This theme feeds the Reading and Writing sections of the Bac SMB English paper (coefficient 2), where a precise word field makes an answer stronger. happy → unhappy → happiness → happily: one base word can turn into a negative adjective, a noun or an adverb through prefixes and suffixes — the key to guessing the meaning of an unknown word in the exam without a dictionary.

راجعه Équipe Orka · 30 غشت 2026

ضمن برنامج بكالوريا SMB

English carries a coefficient of 2 in the Bac Sciences Maths B (SMB) stream, level with Philosophy. Mathematics dominates the stream (coefficient 9), followed by Physics-Chemistry and Engineering Sciences (coefficient 7 each), so English can look marginal — but it and Philosophy form the narrow margin where rankings and honours are actually decided. Reading, language and guided writing are all assessed.

في الامتحان

Three parts: Reading Comprehension, Language, and Writing (a guided text of about 180 words). SMB candidates, trained to be rigorous and systematic, do well on the Language section if they treat each grammar point as a rule with a fixed structure; the risk is a dry essay that ignores vocabulary range and register, which the Writing section also scores.

أهداف التعلم

  • Reuse this vocabulary field in the Bac SMB Reading answers and in the argumentative essay (coefficient 2)
  • Recognise the most common negative prefixes: un-, dis-, im-, in-, ir-, il-, non-
  • Form a noun from an adjective or a verb with suffixes (-ness, -ity, -tion, -ment)
  • Form an adjective from a noun or a verb with suffixes (-ful, -less, -able, -ive)
  • Form an adverb of manner by adding -ly to an adjective

المفاهيم الأساسية

Negative prefixes

un- (happy → unhappy), dis- (agree → disagree), im- (before b / m / p: possible → impossible), in- (correct → incorrect), ir- (before r: responsible → irresponsible), il- (before l: legal → illegal). The choice often depends on the first letter of the base word.

Noun suffixes

-ness (happy → happiness), -ity (able → ability), -tion / -sion (educate → education, decide → decision), -ment (develop → development) — they turn an adjective or a verb into an abstract noun.

Adjective and adverb suffixes

-ful (help → helpful), -less (hope → hopeless, opposite of -ful), -able / -ible (accept → acceptable), -ive (create → creative) for adjectives; -ly added to an adjective for the adverb of manner (quick → quickly, happy → happily with y → i).

الأخطاء الشائعة

1

Using the wrong negative prefix by false analogy: “inresponsible” is wrong — use irresponsible (ir- before r).

2

Confusing -ful and -less, which have opposite meanings: hopeful (full of hope) vs hopeless (without hope) — one letter changes the whole meaning.

3

Forming an irregular adverb as if it followed the general rule: good → goodly does not exist; the correct adverb is well.

مثال محلول

نص السؤال

Complete with the correct form of the word in brackets: “Her decision to leave the company was completely ___ (understand).”

التصحيح

Identify the grammatical function needed. After “completely”, an adverb is possible, but here the structure “was completely ___” calls for an adjective after the verb be.
Choose the right suffix. understand (verb) → understandable (adjective, with the suffix -able).
Result. “Her decision to leave the company was completely understandable.”

افهم الدرس، ثم تدرب.

ينشئ Orka تمارين غير محدودة وامتحانات تجريبية مصححة تغطي برنامج اللغة الإنجليزية في بكالوريا SMB، مع تتبع تقدمك درساً بعد درس.

تابع مجاناً مع Orka

3 تمارين للتدرب

التمرين 1

Easy
Form the noun from happy: happy → ___
عرض التصحيح
happiness — the suffix -ness turns an adjective into an abstract noun.

التمرين 2

Medium
Choose the right negative prefix: ___legal, ___possible, ___correct
عرض التصحيح
illegal (il- before l), impossible (im- before p), incorrect (in-, the general case).

التمرين 3

Hard
Complete with the correct form: “The company's new policy was met with widespread ___ (approve) among employees.” (mind the negative meaning called for by “widespread ___”)
عرض التصحيح
disapproval — the prefix dis- reverses the meaning of approve to disapprove, then the suffix -al forms the noun; the context (a badly received policy) confirms the negative meaning.

تعمق أكثر في هذا الدرس

الأسئلة الشائعة

How do I guess the meaning of an unknown word from prefixes / suffixes in the exam?

Spot the known root (for example “legal” in illegal), then identify the prefix (il- = negation) or the suffix (-tion = noun) to work out the meaning and the word class, even without knowing the word.

Is there a single rule for choosing between un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-?

No absolute rule, but a useful tendency: ir- before r, il- before l, im- before b / m / p, in- otherwise, and un- with many Anglo-Saxon adjectives (happy, fair, kind) rather than Latin ones.

Do -ful and -less apply to every noun?

No, they are productive but not universal: some pairs exist (hope / hopeful / hopeless, care / careful / careless) while other words have only one usual form — when in doubt, check rather than guess in the exam.

A maths-stream student often dislikes English — how do they raise the mark?

Treat it as structure. Every writing task = introduction + argument + counter-argument + conclusion; every grammar point = one rule + one correct example + one typical mistake. Memorise that framework, apply it to the 31 chapters with two example sentences each, and 12/20 is reachable without eating into the heavy maths programme.

How do I use this theme in the Bac SMB essay without sounding generic?

Anchor each key term in one concrete, personal example — a place, a person, a situation you know. A specific illustration in accurate English scores better than a long list of terms with no support, on any of the society prompts in the programme.